Member-only story
Driving the Road Where I Almost Killed Myself
Why I closed my eyes on the highway
At least twice a week, I hop in my car and drive about ten minutes to get to the highway, going to visit my parents who live in the next city over. As a graduate student in her twenties, I know I am perhaps more dependent on my parents than many people my age, but I have a good reason: I have schizoaffective disorder, a serious mental illness that combines schizophrenia and a major mood disorder (in my case, it is depression).
Visiting my parents and letting them cook for me, ask about my school and work, and check to make sure I’m taking my meds helps me to ground myself, and I go to visit them as often as I can. But this story isn’t about my parents. It’s about the road I take to get to them.
When I was a freshman in undergrad, my mind began to shift. It started small. The depression I’d experienced for years began to get worse, and I started spending more time alone in my room and making less of an effort at school. Eventually, my perceptions started to shift for the worse. Familiar places and people felt unfamiliar and even sinister. I began to believe my roommates were working against me, and stayed up late into the night wondering how I could thwart their plans. This all culminated in me withdrawing from my university, returning home with my tail…
